George Watson was born of Scottish immigrant parents in Ontario in 1910. After two years of high school, he took employment in a London, Ontario, hosiery mill. After ten years in the mill, he and others organized what was to become the Canadian Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers in response to a series of wage cuts. Watson became president of his local hosiery union and continued to work in the mill for another ten years, servicing and organizing on his own time. When TWUA entered Canada in 1946, the Canadian Full-Fashioned Hosiery Workers and their then-parent body, the United Textile Workers of Canada, affiliated with the TWUA. In the same year, Watson was placed on TWUA staff and named manager of the newly created London Joint Board. When the London and Hamilton joint boards were merged to form the Southwestern Ontario Joint Board after the Union's internal fight of 1952, Watson became manager of this new Joint Board. In 1957 he became Assistant Canadian Director. In 1965 he was named Canadian Director and was elected to the TWUA Executive Council the following year.
